New Blog

Very strange thing happened to me this morning, I woke up and discovered I'd started a new blog. Check it out if you wish Feeding the Family for $20

Chicken Diane

Ingredients:

• Free range chicken
• Red rascal potatoes
• Green beans
• Red onion (or eschallots I guess)
• Parsley
• Garlic
• Lemon juice
• Chicken stock
• Brandy
• Cream
• Butter
  
• Balsamic vinegar
• Dijon mustard
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil

Method:

1. Peel and dice potatoes.
2. Spread on baking sheet and drizzle with olive oil and season.
3. Stick in preheated 180 degree oven.
4. Dice onion as small as possible.
5. Break down chicken (save frame to make stock)
6. Chuck about 30g of butter in a pan along with 30ml or so of Olive oil and brown the chicken all over.
7. Put on a baking sheet and put in the oven.
8. Soften onions and garlic in same pan.
9. Add cream, brandy,mustard, balsamic, stock to pan and reduce about half.
10. Having begun to read The French Laundry cookbook, I now strain sauces (when I remember).
    

11. Blanch the beans, boil the corn. Add the lemon juice and parsley just before plating.

Time to cook: 35 minutes
Cost per serve: $9
Inspiration: Feb 2008 issue of delicious magazine.

Turkish chicken with apricots, ginger, lemon, saffron and pistachios.

Ingredients:

• Cumin seeds
• Coriander seeds
• Cinnamon
• Black pepper
  
• Salt
• Turmeric
• Chilli flakes
• Saffron
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Green chilles
• Thyme
• Mint
• Apricots
• Dried apricots
• Lemon
• Brown Onion
• Pistachios
• Honey
• Tomato paste
  
• Vegetable stock powder
• Wine (I used a rose)
• Olive oil
  

Method

1. Toast and grind all the spices to make a coarse rub.
2. Break the chicken down into 8 bits
3. Coat the chicken in the rub (large plastic bag is useful here)
4. Dice the onions, julienne the ginger and chop the apricots.
   
5. Dump 100ml of olive oil into a heavy pot and brown the chicken all over.
6. Fry the onions, the ginger and the split chilli in the oil and fallen off spices.
7. When they are soft, dump in the wine to deglaze then stir in tomato paste, thyme, apricots, saffron, vegetable stock powder and bring to a simmer.
8. Then return chicken to pan and toss in lemon juice and zest and cover with water.
9. Simmer covered for 10 minutes and then uncovered for 15 more until chicken is meltingly tender. If you go a little bit further the apricots will render down and the sauce will become almost jammy (whoops, but yum!)
10. Serve with steamed cous-cous, creme faiche and mint.

Time to prepare: 15 minutes larder, 15 minutes active, 25 mins goofing off.
Cost per serve: $8
Inspiration: Sunday Life Magazine, Jan 27 2008 page 25.

Ramen vs Soup Noodles

Ingredients

• Good stock, I used vegetable.
• Oyster sauce
• Keecap manis
• Sesame oil
• Soy sauce
• Finely sliced chicken breast
• Soba noodles
• Lop cheong
• Pak choy
• Baby sweetcorn
• Pork and chive dumplings (store bought)
• Spring onions (not pictured but home grown)
  

Method

1. Heat stock
2. Dump in rest of ingredients
3. Add a little oyster sauce and keecap manis, stir
4. Plonk in bowls, float a little sesame oil on top of hot liquid
5. Garnish with spring onion

Time to prepare: 20 minutes
Cost per serve: $10
Recipe inspiration: Nothing conscious.

Tortellini Bolognese and a Cheats Mille Feuille

Ingredients

• Veal and pork mince
• Canned tomatoes
• Onion
• Garlic
• Tortellini (store bought)
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Cream
• Marscapone
• Vanilla paste
• Icing sugar
  
• Croissants (again store bought, part cooked)
  

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180 C
2. Stick big ass pot of salted water on to boil.
   
3. Slice croissants into three and place on an oven tray and bake until crispy.
   
4. Chop onion, mince garlic, defrost store bought tortellini and raspberries.
   
5. Saute onion and garlic until onion is translucent
6. Chuck in mince and stir until brown
7. Add tomatoes and chop up big bits
8. Stir in a little tomato paste
9. Simmer until thick
10. Season to taste.
    
11. Tip tortellini in water and stir, stick lid on until it comes back to the boil.
    
12. Whip cream to soft peaks, stir in vanilla paste, icing sugar and marscapone.
13. Smear crispy croissant slice with cream, sprinkle with raspberrys repeat with other slices.
14. Sprinkle the lot with icing sugar and serve thusly

Time to cook: 30 minutes
Cost per serve: $15
Inspiration: Ripped more or less directly from a fresh tv episode.

Peking Duck, Chicken with Vegetables and Cashews, Rice

Ingredients

• Duck legs (preprepared peking duck flavour luv-a-duck vac pac)
• Cucumber
• Spring onions (home grown)
• Hoisin sauce
• Peking duck pancakes (I bought 'em as I'm lazy)
• Long grain rice
• Corn-fed chicken thighs
• Baby corn (canned chopped)
  
• Water chestnuts (canned sliced)
  
• Capsicum
• Snow peas
• Beans
• Broccoli
• Cashews
  
• Stir fry sauce
• Ginger (grated/minced/reduced to pulp however you want)
  
• Sugar
• Salt
  
• Soy sauce
• Garlic (same as the garlic)
  
• Sweet chilli sauce
• Tomato sauce
  
• Water
  

Method

1. Preheat oven to stupid degrees C.
2. Whack duck on an oven tray and stick in oven.
3. Stir fry sauce, is easy, mix it all together in a bowl.
   
4. Put rice in heatproof bowl and cover with water to the depth of one knuckle. Cover with glad wrap.
5. Nuke rice on full power for 3 minutes.
6. When done nuke for a further 10 minutes on 50% power.
   
7. Chop cucumber into bits, and spring onions into long batons, stick on a plate.
   
8. Chop vegetables and chicken up.
   
9. Heat wok until smoking and then toss in a little canola oil (don't use olive oil it smokes too much)
10. Stir fry vegetables in batches (or all at once if you have a good wok burner than can keep up the heat)
11. Stir fry the chicken in batches.
12. Chuck all the vegetables, chicken, cashews into wok and toss in sauce, heat through.
13. Nuke pancakes for 30 seconds or so, until they go soft but don't turn into a single gelatinous mass.
14. Remove duck from oven and remove meat from bone and slice.
15. Serve thusly

Time to cook: 30 minutes
Cost per serve: $15
Recipe inspiration: The luv-a-duck pack spotted in the local wholesale butchers.

Steak Dianne, tarragon potatoes and corn

Ingredients:

• Fillet steak
• Corn
• Kipfler potatoes (home grown)
• Tarragon
• Parsley
• Brandy
• Dijon mustard
• Worcestershire sauce
• Butter
• Olive oil
• Salt
• Pepper
  

Method

1. Preheat oven to around 200 C
2. Slice the potatoes into even thickness rounds
3. Melt the butter in a pan and splash in some olive oil to help prevent it from burning.
4. Chuck in finely sliced tarragon
5. Layer potatoes in the pan (careful it spits if the spuds are still wet)
6. Oil and season the steak and sear it well on both sides.
7. Take steak out of pan and steak in oven until done the amount you want.
8. While the steak is finishing cooking, nuke the heck out of the corn
9. Reheat the steak pan (don't clean it) and when hot again
10. Deglaze with around 1/2 cup of brandy (careful it will catch fire)
11. When the fire goes out pour in 1/3 cup of Worcestershire sauce.
12. Stir then put in a table spoon of dijon, if it thickens too much add a little beef stock.
13. Melt in about 50g of unsalted butter whilst stirring
14. And finally season to taste and chop finely and chuck in the parsley.
15. Remove corn from nukebox, steak from oven, drain spuds on paper towel and plate up thusly.
    

Time to cook: 20 minutes
Cost per serve: $8
Recipe inspiration: The fresh tv show from yesterday.

Pad Thai (well sort of)

Ingredients:

• Chicken fillets
• Rice noodles
• Spring Onions
• Capsicum
• Pad thai sauce (previously made, but basically mixed keecap manis, dried prawns, chilli, palm sugar, ginger and salt)
• Onion
• Bean shoots (couldn't get fresh used canned)
• Baby sweet corn
• Water chestnuts
• Bamboo shoots
• Fried shallots
• Peanuts
  

Method:

1. Slice chicken and veges up into small slices.
2. Stick noodles in boiling water to soften up.
   
3. Stir fry hard veges in a oil until soft, set aside in bowl.
   
4. Stir fry chicken in batches in a little oil and some sauce.
5. Chuck everything in wok and sprinkle with peanuts.
6. Serve with garnish of crunchy fried shallots

Time to prepare: 20 minutes
Cost per serve: $5
Recipe inspiration: Side of a bottle of pad thai sauce that I was stealing the ingredient list from.

Pumpkin and Sage Risotto

Ingredients

• Arborio rice
• Pumpkin
  
• Sage
• Parmesan cheese
• Herb bread
• Salt
• Onion
• Garlic

Method

1. Chop half the pumpkin into largish bits and boil until soft in 1 litre of lightly salted water.
2. Chop other half of pumpkin into small even sized cubes and fry over low heat until carmelised on all sides. Patience is the key, just let 'em sizzle away on one side until they are nicely browned and sweet.
   
   
3. Once the first batch of pumpkin is soft, blitz it with a stick blender and add water to make up to 1.5 litres or so.
   
   
4. Stick herb break in hot oven to heat.
   
5. Chop onion and garlic and sweat for a little while.
6. Dump in rice and swirl around until covered with the oily goodness.
   
   
7. Add the pumpkin stock bit by bit whilst stirring.
8. Half way through the stock add most of the chopped sage (retain a little for garnish)
9. Risotto is done when it mostly squishes between your fingers.
10. Add the grated parmesan cheese and stir to melt in.
    
11. Serve with herb bread, garnished with left over sage.
    
    

Time to cook: 45 minutes
Cost per serve: $4.00
Inspiration: An Andrew Blake recipe from one of those newspaper inserts.

Quick spaghetti bolognese

Ingredients:

• Minced pork
  
• Minced beef
• Canned tomatoes (I prefer whole and smoosh 'em myself)
• Garlic
• Onion
• Olive oil
  
• Salt
• Oregano (dried)
• Spaghetti
• Herb bread to accompany.
  

Method:

1. Chop onion finely (I've had good results grating it too, just more tears) and fry it and the garlic in some olive oil.
2. Chuck in the mince and brown it.
3. Smoosh up the tomatoes and chuck them in.
4. Sprinkle in some oregano
5. Head oven to 220 degrees C
   
6. Simmer until thick
7. Cook spaghetti as per packet, whilst heating herb bread.

Time to cook: 35 minutes
Cost per serve: $5
Inspiration: Very little

Fajitas

Ingredients
Fajitas

• Chicken strips
• White onion
• Capsicum
• Chilli flakes
• Coriander (ground)
• Chilli powder
  
• Lemon Juice
• Pepper
• Salt
  

Condiments

• Kumato tomatoes
• Shredded Cheese
• Avocado
  
• Soured cream
• Tortillas
• Coriander
• Lemon juice
  

Method

1. Remove avocado flesh (it's icky so dragoon a volunteer if you can)
2. Squeeze lemon for juice (use a helper if you can)
3. Combine the two to make guacamole
4. Chop onions into segments, capsicum and chicken into thin strips.
5. Chuck onions capiscum and a little oil in pan. Find something else to do so you don't disturb 'em. You want them a little charred. Once they have started going sprinkle some of the seasoning over them.
6. Chop the coriander.
7. Fry the chicken in small batches in the same pan as the onions and capsicum where done. Again you want it charred so don't move the chicken about too much.
8. When the chicken is done return the onions and capsicum to the pan, chuck in any leftover seasoning and the coriander and stir through.
9. Put the condiments in dinky little bowls and have your helper ferry them to the table.
10. Mix and match as you will to make yummy (if monotonous) fajitas.

Time to cook: 35 minutes (50 with helper)
Cost per serve: $8
Inspiration: Very little

Lamb Kofta, Cucumber Salad and Raita.

Ingredients:

Kofta

• Lamb mince
• Fresh coriander
  
• Coriander seeds
• Cumin Seeds
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Salt
• Chillies
  
• Egg yolk
• Yoghurt
• Onion

Salad

• Cucumber
• Coriander leaves
  
• Capsicum
• Red Onion

Raita

• Yoghurt
• Mint
• Cucumber

Method:

1. Mince together all the kofta ingredients in a bowl. Remember when scaling down a recipe to scale all of the ingredients especially the yoghurt, otherwise you get:
   
   
   strange liquid things that don't stay on the skewer as they should (solve this by pan frying them for a little while to form a crust before skewering)
   
   
2. Form sausages of the mush on skewers and char grill for about 8 minutes.
   
3. Meanwhile, finally slice the red onion, capsicum and 1/2 a deseeded cucumber and chuck in a bowl with the coriander leaves.
   
4. Finely chop the mint and mix with 1/2 a grated cucumber (don't peel it!) and yoghurt, to make the raita.
   
5. Plate it up thusly:

Time to cook: 45 minutes (15 minutes less if you don't stuff up)
Cost per serve: $8
Inspiration: A taste weeknight recipe

Risotto with broccoli and chicken balls.

Ingredients:

• Chicken mince
• Coriander
• Arborio rice
• Vegetable stock
• Garlic
• Onion
• Broccoli
• Parmesan cheese
• Prosciutto
• Olive oil
• Salt

Method:

1. Heat oven to 220 degrees C.
   
2. Chop coriander leaves into tiny bits
3. Grate onion
4. Chop coriander stems into really tiny bits, mix with onions
5. Chop broccoli into florets
6. Heat the vegetable stock (I nuked it as I killed my last saucepan not too long ago)
   
7. Mix half the coriander leaves, a tiny bit of grated onion and the chicken mince.
8. Form into balls and fry in batches until brown. Shaking the pan makes rounder balls that using tongs.
9. Stick garlic bread in oven.
10. Heat olive oil in pot and chuck in garlic, rest of onion and coriander stems.
11. When translucent, chuck in rice and stir to coat rice with all the oily, oniony goodness.
12. Chuck in the florets to soften
    
13. You know the drill, whack in stock and stir until absorbed, repeat until bored and rice feels right when you squish it between your fingers.
14. Just as you are about to serve chuck in the rest of the coriander and stir.
15. Crumble prosciutto over the top and remove garlic bread from oven.

Time to cook: 45 minutes
Cost per serve: $7.50
Inspiration: None

Steak with herb sauce, salad with dijon honey vingairette

Ingredients:

• Steak (fillet)
• Prosciutto
• Rocket
• Spinach
• Cucumber
• Apple
• Orange
• Celery
• Parsley
• Mint
• Coriander
• Olive oil
• White balsamic vinegar
  
• Dijon mustard
• Honey
  
• Salt
• Almonds
  

Method:

1. Heat char grill to stupid hot.
2. Fry prosciutto in pan until crisp.
3. Chop and toast almonds.
4. Oil and season steak and whack on grill.
5. Make mixture of 1 part vinegar, 3 parts oil
6. Add 1 tbsp dijon, 1 tbsp honey, shake vigorously.
7. Taste and salt if required.
8. Turn steak after 5 minutes (or so). Season just before you turn it.
   
9. Segment orange, core peel slice apple. Whack in bowl
   
10. Make thin slices of cucumber with speed peeler or mandolin. Whack in bowl
11. Slice celery thinly (peel if it's stringy)
    
12. Chuck leaves in bowl
13. Break prosciutto up into bits and chuck in bowl.
14. Press steak and when it feels right (Should feel like the meaty part of your hand does when you touch your thumb to forefinger) remove it from the grill and let rest.
15. Whack herbs, inner leaves from celery, a little olive oil, some grated Parmesan, Salt and almonds in a blender and blitz.
16. Plate up salad and steak. Drizzle salad with vingairette and steak with herb sauce.

Time to prepare: 25 minutes
Cost per serve: $12
Inspiration: This one is all mine.